others. You treat us all, men and women, just alike. You are gracious or
cold, just according to how much we can help. I sometimes wonder, Mr.
Jocelyn Thew, whether you have a heart at all."

For a single moment he looked at her kindly. His hand even patted hers. It
was a curious revelation. He was a kindly ordinary human being.

"Ah, Nora," he said, "I am not quite so bad as that! But for many years I
have had a great, driving impulse inside me, and at the back of it the most
wonderful incentive in all the world. You know what that is, Nora--or
perhaps you don't. To a woman it would be love, I suppose. To a man it is
hate."

She drew a little further away from him, as though something which had
flamed in his eyes for a moment had frightened her.

"Yes," she murmured, "you are like that."

Jocelyn Thew was himself again almost at once.

"Since we understand one another, Nora," he said, a little more kindly,
"let me tell you that I am really very glad to see you, although you did
give me rather a shock just now. I want you, if you will, to turn your head
to the left. You see those two men--one seated in the easy-chair and the
other on its arm?"

"I see them."

"They are the two men," he continued, "who are out to spoil my show if they
can. You may see them again under very different circumstances."